State of Mind

Could this Hudson Lights development site be key to the Bridge-Gate scandal?

As a real estate writer for the Zillow blog, we decided to write a piece about the city of Fort Lee, since the New Jersey city is the epicenter of the Chris Christie bridge lane closing scandal. And what we found in Fort Lee was Fred Sokolich, the real estate broker brother of Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich. He answered the phone and gave me a good interview about the city and the bridge and the future of housing in Fort Lee.

Zillow is the online real estate site that delivers millions of data points on homes and property across the United States. In the blog, we write real estate news, so this Fort Lee incident sounded like a good way to feature the city. We had no idea that real estate development might be the underlying factor to Bridgegate, but apparently the wagons are circling around a key development parcel and critical access to that parcel via designated bridge lanes for Fort Lee.

In connection to the bridge scandal, many mentions have been made to Fort Lee's renaissance, which features a land parcel at the foot of the GWB , where a major, billion-dollar development is taking place.Hudson Lights is the name of the development. I think we will know a lot more about it in days to come.

What has been one of the more striking elements of the scandal is the idea that the lane closures that snarled traffic for four days in September was payback for Mark Sokolich, a Democrat, for not endorsing Republican Chris Christie for governor. Christie and Sokolich have been pretty forthright in saying that lack of endorsement was not an issue. Then what was?

Rachel Maddow suggested that fights over reappointments to the New Jersey State Supreme Court were possibly the reason, since Christie and Democratic State Sen. Loretta Weinberg, whose district includes Fort Lee, were in a death squabble over who would or would not be reappointed, or confirmed.

Well, maybe yes. Maybe no -- especially when there is now reason to cast a critical eye toward the billion-dollar development that Mayor Mark Sokolich has helped make happen after decades of Jersey-style corruption and shenanigans over the Hudson Lights parcel in Fort Lee, right under the GW Bridge.

The long-awaited Hudson Lights luxury development in Fort Lee that was delayed this summer has secured financing for the project, which will get under way next month,officials said Monday.The first-phase of the massive mixed-use project, set to be built on an eight-acre lot near the George Washington Bridge, will cost $218 million, with $117 million funded by a construction loan from Sovereign Santander Bank. Tucker Development Corp. and Ares Management lined up that loan, and they will provide equity capitalization for the remainder of the cost.Hudson Lights' first phase includes about 143,000 square feet of retail space, 864 parking stalls and 276 apartments with amenities including a pool, lounge, fitness center, rooftop terrace and gardens. It will total about 517,000 square feet of commercial and residential space, exclusive of structured parking.At a real estate conference in May, a Tucker Development official said the company expected to break ground on Hudson Lights in July. Now, the official groundbreaking will likely take place in early- to mid-October, said Tucker Development President and Chief Executive Richard Tucker, who is based in Highland Park, Ill."Long and short of it is, we're very excited about where we are," he said. "We'll actually be moving dirt on-site this week, and we'll be announcing the actual groundbreaking very shortly." The date got pushed back because of a combination of factors, Tucker said, including nailing down financing as well as lining up a high-profile tenant, whom he wouldn't disclose."There's a major tenant that we were in negotiations with that we wanted to complete prior to finalizing our financing," Tucker said. "It also took a little more time. It's a complicated project, and so there's a lot of issues that go into finalizing the plans, finalizing the costs, finalizing the financing, and all in all, it took a little longer."Tucker Development, whose partner on Hudson Lights is Kushner Real Estate Group, will be announcing that tenant soon, Tucker said."It's someone that we're incredibly excited about having as part of the project and the entire market will be excited about it," he said.Tishman Construction Corp. is the general contractor for the project, which is being built on the former Helmsley tract in downtown Fort Lee. Robert K. Futterman & Associates is the exclusive retail leasing agent.Tucker confirmed a Wall Street Journal report that Coldwell Banker Residential will be taking space at Hudson Lights, but he added that isn't the big tenant he has cited.The development will front on Lemoine Avenue, Main Street, Park Avenue (currently Martha Washington Way) and Bruce Reynolds Boulevard. Two roadways will be constructed as part of the redevelopment. The new Central Avenue will link Lemoine and Park avenues. Hudson Street, the focal point of the "streetscape," or pedestrian-oriented retail, will be constructed between Main Street and Central Avenue.The first phase of Hudson Lights will take 22 months to complete. The second section will include an additional 201 residential units, about 50,000 square feet of retail space and parking, and a 175-room hotel. The zoning also affords the development the option for an office building of up to 430,000 square feet.

Having covered politics in New York and Pennsylvania for the Albany Times Union and the Patriot-News, it certainly seems as if it is well within the bounds of PLAUSIBLE -- given the kinds of dollars and players involved in deals like these -- that this real estate development deal is exactly the kind of issue that would cause political operatives to go wilding on a retribution scheme.

For instance, bond deals are always fodder for jealousy and shenanigans, because of the fees involved in generating the financing. What about the bond deal for Hudson Lights, as secured by Tucker Construction via banking giant Sovereign Santander? It's just one place to scratch around on to see if somehow, there are threads to be pulled. Retribution like closing bridge lanes may sound like stupidity, as Christie tried to characterize it. But it could be far worse and intentional that stupidity.

The key, going forward, will be to outline the background of this real estate development project. Nothing of this magnitude gets done anywhere without a lot of hands in the pot, or a lot of actors feeling like they may or may not have gotten their share of the deal.

Fort Lee is not just an exit off the GW Bridge, as Fred Sokolich emphasized. It is a city. It is a real place. It sits directly on the Hudson, facing New York City, and provides easy access to one of the most expensive cities in the world for development and real estate. With the economic collapse of 2008 behind us, Fort Lee real estate is up 13 percent or more in the last year. It is going to go up another 4 percent in 2014, according to Zillow analytics. This is a playground not only for politicians and bridge commuters, but developers doing deals worth millions.

But given the mafia connections to some aspects of the land now being developed courtesy of Mayor Mark Sokolich's Hudson Lights project, I'm glad I am currently in Seattle.

It was a little odd when Mayor Sokolich of Fort Lee went on all the news stations last Thursday and Friday after the Chris Christie press conference and apology tour of Fort Lee, saying the only thing he asked Christie for was that no more retribution take place.

Financing was not settled in September when the lanes closed, right? Must have made investors nervous at a delicate point, with all else in place. But financing came through the day after the lanes reopened. Hmmm. Who lost, who benefited?

Something had to be unfinished here, though. New worries needed to be put in play. The success of $1 billion Hudson Lights complex – the biggest deal in Fort Lee history -- depends on its billion dollar location with easy GWB access. Christie kept on about maybe reducing Fort Lee bridge lanes well into December, I believe, saying something oh-so-offhanded about dedicated lanes maybe being a detriment to “fairness.”

So…Christie still wanted to undermine this brand-new mega project by threatening a new traffic pattern as a chaser to the 4-day closures? Was this what the mayor had in mind when he said "no more retribution?" But the question is why? Why hamstring this done deal, where whoever was going to get a piece of something probably already has gotten it?

Silverstein Properties, also represented by that busy law firm, Wolff & Samson, was a bidder for the Ft. Lee site, one of four. He lost out to Tucker Development. But it's a done deal. Not seeing what good (i.e., profit) would come of it for Silverstein to be a vengeful spoiler. Motive, motive…it’s Mayor Sokolich’s big coup, but why jeopardize it? Sokolich didn’t seem to be much on Christie’s radar, but who knows?

Another Wolff & Samson client is the Rockefeller Group, which allegedly is having some important people stress to Mayor Zimmer how important its project is. Another $1 billion deal.

A $75,000 state/PA study recommends only the Rockefeller's portion for "redevelopment," which comes with incentives and tax breaks. The Hoboken Planning Board, puzzled, rejected the study since they hoped to develop all 19 parcels, not just Rockefeller's 3. Consternation ensued. Various actors arrived on the scene.

Important to the plot: Wolff & Samson is the law firm of David Samson, Chairman of the Port Authority and a Christie appointee. Two of Christie’s other PA appointees, David Wildstein and Bill Baroni, were point men in the closures and resigned before the whole bridge thing blew up. Disposable? As so many around Christie seem to be. No doubt they’ll bob to the surface at some point.

Reply

Phildo

2/6/2014 04:48:08 pm

The key to this mystery is, as always, to "follow the money." CC and David Samson apparently have a very "deep" relationship. Could CC have proposed a change in the Ft. Lee lane access to the GW Bridge to induce Tucker to retain Wolff & Samson to obtain redress from the Port Authority? The value of their land investment, based on three lane access to the bridge, was at stake.

What's that worth to Tucker? I suspect any money paid to Wolff & Samson to lobby the Port Authority could find it's way to David Samson and, indirectly, Chris Christie.

That's a shakedown. Implausible? It sounds very similar to the Hoboken situation involving a Wolff & Samson client, Rockefeller Properties.

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LAURA VECSEY

I used to write politics, news and sports for newspapers in cities like Albany NY, Seattle, Baltimore and Harrisburg PA. Now I take a lot of Instagram photos, check Facebook, swim, read about T$$$p and cook dinner for people I really like. New York native, living in Port Washington and Greenfield Center (that's near Saratoga Springs FYI).